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Tuesday, 12 April 2011

QAL - sashing

Join this QAL at any time. The starter post is here and the Flickr group to share your progress shots is here. You may want to think one step ahead here and stock up on wadding for the next phase. I of course buy mine from Mandy from Simply Solids - with free UK postage, it would be rude not to. At 90" wide, you can get two blocks on one width so, for the six block quilt, you'll need something like 3 metres.

And now it's sashing time. Each block you make has two rounds of sashing - the 1" coloured fabrics and the 2" background fabrics. This is where we're headed:

1. If your finished blocks are a bit winky wonky, trim they so they are straight and square - if necesary, trim 1/4" from each block. Mine were a little bit wibbly wobbly but I decided I was too lazy to neaten them up. Shame on me.

2. Now you need 72 strips of coloured fabric 1" wide and 10" long (or 12 per individual block). For those of you using a layer cake, you will already have trimmed some of these from your layer cake slices when you first cut the dresden leaves. I sew these into one great big long ribbon which you can see below on the left.

3. You will then need eighteen 2" wide WOF (width of fabric - where you cut strips across the fabric from selvedge to selvedge) strips. Three per dresden circle. Again, I sew these end to end to make one long ribbon which you can see above on the right.

4. Sew strips of the coloured ribbon onto two opposite sides of each of your dresden squares, press and trim. I press towards the coloured sashing.

5. Sew strips to the other two sides of each of your dresden squares, press and trim.

6. Sew strips of background sashing onto two opposite sides of each of your dresden squares, press and trim.

7. Again I press towards the coloured sashing so that it will be slightly raised from the background in the final quilt. Here you can see the two seams being pressed towards the sashing.

8. Sew strips of background sashing to the two remaining sides of each dresden square, press, trim, hang on the washing line, take a photo, maybe move your car first so that doesn't appear in the photo.

Forgive my question, I should not attempt to understand anything mathematical on Friday night, my brain is just too tired. Of course the instructions are perfect and the resulting sashed blocks are even better than before.